Diego's story

As all the world knows by now, I have a wee 3 1/2 year old brother. He is damn near as witty and attractive as I am too, I'm tellin' ya. This super random story is testament to that.
On the fam's last trip to that little place that I like to refer to as the armpit of the U. S. of A., Florida, they snagged themselves one of those pesky little lizards to cage and ogle at their leisure. (I was not included in this trip, mind you, as I would rather have my ass kicked than ever go to Florida again.) This poor little creature lives in his glass aquarium on the kitchen counter at my mother's house. One day, while I was watching Mark we went into the kitchen to make lunch and he hopped onto a chair and yelled, "Let's find Diego!" Visions of a fat, sweaty Latino with a thick moustache ducking behind our garbage can popped into my head as I asked, "Who on earth is Diego??" My bro then gave me a look to signify that I was clearly retarded and motioned toward the lizard's cage. I asked him how this little guy's name came to be "Diego" but he never did give me a satisfactory explanation.
FINALLY today I remembered to ask my mom what was up with that and she told me when they caged this creature and it was finally time for him to have a name the task was left up to Mark. He then apparently began sputtering gibberish and when my mom said she couldn't understand him he replied, "Mom, that's because I was speaking in Spanish." (Duh.) He wanted the lizard to have a Spanish name so my mom listed various, super obvious Latino names like Julio and Manuel until she finally came to Diego and my wee young brother was satiated.

Just so that everyone knows, Diego has been alive and well, living off of 12 crickets a week, in that cage for about 2 months now. He must be like Superlizard or something. I mean, he should certainly have croaked by now, right?

24 Hour Party People

Last Saturday my roommate, Amberly, was reading poetry at the UNO (Uni of New Orleans) bar, Handsome Willy's, so Linda (my other roomie) and I set off for the place about an hour before she was supposed to begin. Luckily so, because that gave us exactly enough time to aimlessly joyride around in the ghetto, drive in circles, and not be able to find this bar that we'd been to before to save our damn lives. Who says it's a good idea to locate your bar right under the interstate anyway? We finally got there once Linda called Dr.J and he was able to direct us properly. Amberly read some nice poems to us all and looked attractive backlit while cockroaches walked around in the space between she and us. Drinks were on Dr.J too, which made it all the MO BETTA.
Unfortunately, it was all of 1 million degrees with the 100% humidity and Linda and I had to beat it and go elsewhere to sit inside, plus not be freaked out by the claustrophobic UNO bar (and all of the UNO students located therein).
Finally, we got to The Saint at about 11pm or so. I like to think of The Saint as the Buster's of New Orleans, only cooler of course. It's the one bar uptown where all the cool kids hang out. Cute boys too. Oh, and a photobooth. Sometimes it's nice to have something tangible to show for a drunken evening.
Since we were without any of our boy friends we met some mens to chat with in virtually no time regardless of the resounding glare of my shiney forehead.(Seriously, it was hot.) Not only did we meet a nice fellow, with whom Linda immediately joined lips, whose sculptures are displayed throughout the city but we ALSO got to hang out with a couple men that the roommates and I dubbed The Cocaine Brothers. These men are probably the most attractive boys in all of New Orleans. Without fail, they always show up if you are in a cool bar, they are always drinking cocktails no matter what time of the early morning, they are always wearing eyeliner, and always dressed totally mod. I would bet that they don't even know what jeans are. Sooo attractive, those Cocaine Brothers! So, due to the consumption of drugs, alcohol and spending time with witty and attractive men it was probably 8:30 in the morning when we finally opened the door of The Saint in order to reenter the outside world. Being inside The Saint is like being inside a casino. There are no windows, always drinks and fun people all 'round, and you never want to leave. Time stands still in that bar. Unfortunately, the outside world keeps a' spinnin' and every damn time I walk out that door it's daylight. It never fails. Only this time we decided to then go to the French Quarter and go to some more bars. A clever disguise on Cocaine Tom's part for "going to get more drugs". I don't normally do the drugs at all and never do I do them at 9 in the morning. That's just a waste. Nevermind the fact that if I would have put another mind altering substance, legal or no, into my body at that point I would have been permanently brain damaged. But I still went. And goodness! those Cocaine Brothers have an awesome apt right on Decatur St. I need to start selling drugs too if that's where it gets you! Sheesh. We weren't long for the rest of that venture though. It was getting later and later and subsequently hotter and hotter. There aren't many things stranger (how 'bout wronger?) than still being out at 10am, walking around in the heat, all amidst tourists. Hopefully though Linda and I can track those Brothers down again this weekend. We'll certainly try our damnedest.
Oh, can anyone guess what I did all day on Sunday? Yes, I slept all day. And when I wasn't sleeping do you know what I was doing? Napping.
It sure was a Nawlins kinda weekend. Whew.

Who?

So, I've got this new sorta job writing music related things for one of the local free New Orleans newspapers, "Where Y'at". My first assignments were due today so, naturally, I waited until last night to write them. I don't mean to say they were difficult or that I needed a lot of time to write them up or anything; that's mostly the reason that I let myself wait until the last minute to do it. I wrote the show previews for the upcoming Holly Golightly and Brian Jonestown Massacre dates. The BJM was pretty easy, as I've listened to them for years now and seen them twice before. Holly Golightly, on the other hand, not so much. I saw her with Linda last year but other than that sorta didn't know jack shit about her. Well, that is no longer the case. In preparation for the 150-200 word show preview that I wrote I became a Holly Golightly expert. She's pretty cool by the way. And after trying to think of ways to sell these shows to people who have never heard of this music in their lives I got myself totally pumped up for them too. So...yay!
Anyway, here they are:


Holly Golightly
Monday 8/8, (?) PM
One Eyed Jacks (615 Toulouse, 569-8361)

In 1995 Holly Golightly left the all girl garage band Thee Headcoatees and began her solo career with the album The Good Things. Golightly plays rock 'n' roll music with a heavy blues influence. Throughout the years and her many albums she has remained true to her garage rock roots and her songs continue to convey that raw quality that many fans now associate with her music. Perhaps the best thing about Golightly is her beautiful voice, deep and befitting. It hasn't been long since Golightly was last in New Orleans; she played One Eyed Jacks in November of last year. She mingled with the swelling crowd right up until she took the stage. It was then that she proceeded to sing her audience into the night. Perhaps her disarming presence coupled with her ever charming accent have something to do with it, but Golightly has a knack for making one feel right at home watching her play and, at the same time, seems right at home herself.



Brian Jonestown Massacre
Wednesday 8/10, 10 PM
TwiRoPa (1544 Tchoupitoulas, 587-3777)

The first time I saw Brian Jonestown Massacre perform they made it
through three whole songs before they started swinging mic stands at
their audience; the second time I saw them they were perfect. The
music swelled and hung like a fog in the room, but not like the
sticky, nightly New Orleans fog. It was like a red-tinged cloud of
rock 'n' roll that you would never want to step out of. Anyone who saw
last year's documentary, DiG!, by Ondi Timoner knows that the former
scenario is what BJM is most infamous for. Anton Newcombe, the band's
mastermind, is widely thought of as a musical genius; but it's his
self-destructive nature that has hindered the band from becoming
popular for more than just their in-band fighting and their lead
singer's unpredictability. Still, Newcombe is infinitely inspired and
musically prolific. Unfortunately, due to his eccentricities and the
band's inability to function consistently they have been unable to
maintain a healthy relationship with a record label and have always
lacked major distribution. However, in Anton Newcombe's quest to take
over the world he will continue to tour and record as many albums as
humanly possible. Lucky for us.

BJM's new mini disc, We Are The Radio, comes out tomorrow on Tee Pee Records. You can listen to the single, "God Is My Girlfriend", on Tee Pee's site or the Massacre's myspace page. Dr. Newcombe is on his game. Ummnn, does he still do smack? Anyone know?


Another new song, but this one by BRMC, (yes!) can be found on their myspace page. It's called "Ain't No Easy Way" and it's really jangly and old timey rock soundin'. It sort of doesn't sound like BRMC. The new album, Howl, is supposed to come out on August 23rd. They're still attractive by the way. And I think maybe they've finally gotten some new black outfits! It's about time too, those old ones were starting to get a little too holey.

By the way, I'm seriously lovin' the myspacer lately. And bands, like reeeal bands, utilizing it to put their new songs out there for everyone to hear. You can listen to Death Cab For Cutie's single from their upcoming album on their myspace page too but I refuse to link to it because the song is too lame. I just checked to see if the Fruit Bats a.) had a myspace page and if so then b.) had their new song, Lives Of Crime, on their page. It seems as if they DO have a page but it must be really new because that damn Tom is their only friend. And that's just sad. (And no, the song isn't on there. Get it here instead.)

np - BRMC - "Ain't No Easy Way" (duh.)

Tomorrow:

I bet it's gonna be magical; I'll let you know.

np - Sia - "Breathe Me"

There is an epidemic claiming our youth...

At first I thought this Stop EMO Haircuts video was sort of hilarious. That is, until I noticed that they utilize the term "gay ass" and list the video's tag as "Fags". That sort of thing generally leaves a bad taste in my mouth, especially when I don't know the people that are utilizing them. I do agree with the overall message. I never have been much of a fan of the emo hair, though still a sucker for the baby mohawk. Or feaux-hawk. (But what kind of boy would admit to having a "feaux-hawk"? really.) Also, what was up with it being all boys? There are a mighty lot of unsightly emo haircuts on ladies too. Oh well, maybe the death metal men that made the video don't mind the ladies emo do's so much. Thay can still want to have sex with them and feel okay about it, since they're ladies and all.

(As I was writing the above post I realised that Zebra posted a link to the exact same thing earlier. Whatever dude, I'm putting it up anyways.)

While we're on the topic of funny haircuts, I think I'll talk about mine. While I was home I got my mother to cut my hair. I told her I wanted pseudo-bangs and lots of layers. I can't get real bangs due to an unfortunate cowlick on my hairline. So, allow me to recount the exact moment when I realised I was going to have 80's hair. While my mother was snip-snip-snipping away I could see that some pieces of hair were like way, way shorter than some others and I asked her, "Mom, are you giving me an 80's haircut?"
To which she scoffed, "What? No." And then she thought about it for a second and she was like, "Well, actually I guess this could be considered sort of 80's." Then I laughed at the fact that my mother just admitted that she was in the middle of making me look 80's. But really, it's totally cool and looks good. Oh, we also dyed it red. I wanted it to be the same red as Kate Winslet's in Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind when she and Joel are in his memory in the what? 60's? when he was 4 and crawling under the table? Remember how gd cool Clementine's hair was in that scene? Man. (Here too.) Well, anyway, my mom refused so I settled for one shade more normal than Clementine's. Plus, the tips are still black from when Emily and I dyed it black for mine and Marci's Axl and Slash Halloween costumes almost 2 years ago. So, it's mostly red but with black on the tips of the longest pieces. (In case you're having trouble visualising, it looks super cool.) Really though, I think I would have been fine with my new hair no matter what decade it harkened back to. I was so tired of having the hair style "LONG" that I could've died.
I totally love having dyed hair. I think if my hair was lighter I would just dye it constantly, until it fell out I suppose. Then I could just wear my pink wig every day. Everybody wins.

Things to do tomorrow:

1. Tell my kitty that I love her.
2. Hang out in airports all day.
3. Go to Kentucky.
4. Hug and kiss my friends.
5. Slap on my party pants and dancin' shoes.
6. Get loaded in downtown Lexington.
7. Hug and kiss my friends some more. (Probably some more than others. And with more tongue.)
and finally,
8. Pass OUT!

just outside of Louisville

Yeah, that looks about right.

The trailer and a "first look", super duper long trailer are finally up for Elizabethtown. The website claims that it is going to be in theatres (only!) in October 2005. The movie actually looks really cheesy and like it's probably pretty bad. If the trailers are an accurate depiction of the film then I am going to be so sick of looking at Orlando Bloom's face by the time it's over. Mostly though, I just hope that no matter how bad it is, that it is NOT a Garden State 2. God, that would be fucking tragic. But, what the hell; it's Cameron Crowe, right? He's good; he knows what he's doing. And he loves music, so at least it's a pretty sure thing that the soundtrack will contain lots of fun twists and turns. He is still championing Elton John, as evidenced in the longer trailer. Oh, and the boys (all except for the keyboard player, I think?) from My Morning Jacket are in the movie as well, which I think is pretty cool. Cameron is keeping it hometown proud by casting a band from Louisville. But it seems that they are not appearing the movie as My Morning Jacket but just as the band in which one of the characters, Jessie, plays drums. Hopefully there are some nice landscape shots of the KY in all its green glory. I'll go see the movie just for that. Oh, and to reminisce on the night when Loudon, Kirsten and Orlando came to Lexington and we took Kirsten and Orlando to The Bar, where they proceeded to not dance because they were too stoned. And I was too loaded to form complete sentences so I didn't much try to talk to them. Kirsten only had eyes for Clint anyway. They were very nice though. I'm just sad that Paul Schneider, who was also in All The Real Girls, didn't come. Or Judy Greer (she played Kitty, the assistant in Arrested Development). She is hilarious! But I am very thankful that there was no Jessica Biel popping up at The Dame that night. I can't imagine what it's like to have to look at her face in real life! Yikes. But Orlando and Kirsten were representing properly on their own. And all of us have this unlikely story to tell all of our friends forever and ever. Whenever I tell someone about meeting them the reaction is always, "What??!! You met them in Lexington? Blah blah. What the hell were they doing there?!" I keep trying to tell everyone, Lexington's where it's at. No one listens. I get no respect.

regular trailer

the longest trailer of all time

Kentuck-ian-Zombies

It's official; I am spending July 1st - the 10th in the ever exciting land of Kentucky! I am oh, so happy that I will be hugging and kissing all of my far away friends again. My mom and little bro too. I can only be invited to my 3 year old brother's house to play in his room with him while watching the Spongebob Movie so many times before I completely cave. He's quite phone savvy, that one. That coupled with his preternatural (thank you, Royal Tenenbaums) understanding of the little kid guilt trip makes his demands that I visit nearly impossible to oppose.

I did not get him stoned previous to the taking of that photo; that's just how he looks. Except for he usually has a shirt on and pants off. Other than my babe, Mark, I hope to spend lots of quality time with the likes of Marci a-go-go, Robert effin Schneider, Zebra, JNI, Nickalicious, Tony, Greg B, Seandd and etc etc. (Steven, how often do you come visit?) It would be nice to come across some other folks like Rock and Honey, Shannon, Nan, Clint, EmilyV and her wee babe but we're all too backward to try to call one another to arrange something so hopefully at least some of us will find ourselves getting loaded in a similar area of town. There aren't too many choice spots to do that in either so I look forward to everyone and their dog getting the chance to ask me about how unbearably hot it is here in the NO. And it is.
The Cloud Room are playing at the Southgate House while I am home so I think I'll probably go look at them. There was a little talk about them a couple months ago because Arcade Fire was spotted at one of their shows. I heard one of their songs, "Hey Now Now", which I thought was just regular at the time. But apparently, according to their website, CMJ claims it is fit for an iPod commercial. That's serious talk.
Land of the Dead opens today. Amberly is so psyched to see it that she can barely see straight. At least the undead in this one are not fast-moving like in the Dawn of the Dead remake. That will make them far less scary, at least to me. I hope. I'm totally interested to see a modern George Romero zombie movie though. We're going tomorrow night; I am hopeful that it is going to be awesome.



np - Electrelane - "Birds"

Frankie In The Quarter

Guess who my roommates and I were lucky enough to cross paths with last Saturday in the French Quarter. That's right, Frankie Muniz.



Speaking of Frankies, does anyone remember the song "Fuck Frankie" from the Marilyn Manson Smells Like Children album? Yipes.

np - woxy

that happy clappy band

Gawrsh. Lookit how popular Clap Your Hands Say Yeah is getting all of a sudden. Every blogger in town is raving on and on about them, Pitchfork gave their self-titled album a 9.0 AND David end-all-be-all Bowie is going to see them in concert. Hmm, last time I heard about Mr. Bowie making a special appearance at a show was the Arcade Fire back in January or so. Hopefully, CYHSY can follow in their many footsteps and be all wonderful and popular because I think they're really good. The Pitchfork review is right on, in my opinion. For once. Part late 80's modern rock, part Talking Heads(seriously, David Byrne's vocals are being channeled here), part Modest Mouse. ALL GOOD.


yay mp3's!
In This Home On Ice
Upon This Tidal Wave Of Young Blood
Over And Over Again (Lost & Found)

np - Six Feet Under Soundtrack Vol. 2

Paisanos and Goths unite.

/

Super Mario Bros music/Nine Inch Nails - "Closer" mash-up.
Jake Fogelnest told me about it, so you can thank him.

np - The Fame - "Lost In You"

Everything's better with floof.

This is Pumyra (pronounced Poo-mere-uh); she is my #1 favorite kitty of all time. She's certainly not the nicest kitty but we've known each other a long time and I have gotten pretty good at sensing when she's about to play bite or bite for real. She is 4 years old but still kitten-sized. I think maybe that has something to do with her surly demeanor. She has little kitty syndrome. I love her.



This is Amberly's Hareton. He's my roommate and my 2nd favorite kitty ever. This is mostly due to his love of computing and the fact that we are bed buddies. I'm going to adopt him one day.

I am bitchin' by default.

I just ordered the above shirt from Defunker and, let me tell you, it is so bitchin'.

Texas Instruments

Honestly, I don't know why I think this is funny. Maybe it's because it instantly makes me think back on my high school days, when I finally entered real math classes, and had to purchase a TI-82 and had no fucking idea how to work it. Imagine, or remember rather, just discovering this horrifying thing called a "parabola" and seconds later being instructed how to create one on this calculator that is before you. Nevermind that there are so many buttons, most with like 43 functions, that one of them surely launches rockets somewhere. Really the only thing I utilized my Texas Instrument for was to try my damnedest to figure out how to cheat on tests and store every possible formula somewhere in that honkin' thing. Usually somewhere I was never able to locate again, or would accidentally erase immediately. After completing Algebra 2, much to my relief, I lost track of my TI-82. I don't know what the hell happened to it but years later, in college, I had to purchase a TI-83 and then had no fucking idea how to work it. God damn MATH 109.
On second thought, this whole TI-83 business isn't funny at all. Although, I guess the TI's have only tried to ease my math pain so perhaps I should be thankful. I sort of feel like it's okay to embrace the TI's. Luckily there were always people even more ignorant than I, who needed even more instruction on how to operate the machine.
Jesus, I almost forgot how math retarded I am. I should probably be getting checks from the government. Or at least be issued some sort of handicap permit for my car.

np - Youth Group - Skeleton Jar

I almost forgot,

NOT GUILTY.

np - MJ - "P.Y.T. (Pretty Young Thing)"

The early bird gets the unreleased music!

My Sufjan Illinois cd already came in the mail! It arrived yesterday in all it's glory. Asthmatic Kitty is awesome. Man, I love ordering albums directly from the record labels. Generally, I find that if I'm preordering, they come much earlier than if ordered from Amazon or someplace like that. Also, they usually tend to include some extra junk that may or may not be fun. And I loooove junk.

I think this, from i.am.large, is somewhat absurd:

Now you can save text on your iPod. You know, just in case you're out and need to read some inspirational haiku and have forgotten your handy mini-sized Inspirational Haiku Book (<-- that's the title) at home. I guess.
I just don't fully understand the concept of being able to do things like read a poem (or Leaves of Grass, wtf?) on your iPod, or check your email on your cell phone. Wouldn't you be scrolling down like every half a second? I barely have enough patience to text message.

np - Sufjan Stevens - Illinoise

Sufjan invites you...

Sufjan Stevens' Illinois isn't released until July 5, 2005 but you can preorder from Asthmatic Kitty now and they will send it along in about a month's time. The cd is only $10, which was too cheap for me to pass up. (It's $13.99 on Amazon.) The coinciding Illinois poster is pretty cool too with Abe and the spaceships and all.



np - Clap Your Hands Say Yeah! - "Over and Over Again"

Ooglegay

Today, thanks to Brooklyn Vegan, I learned something great. In addition to being able to Google in all of the languages of the world you can also try these:
Bork, bork, bork!
Elmer Fudd
Hacker
Klingon
and Pig Latin!
Either pig latin or bork! would have to be my preferred method. I mean, pig latin is the all time funniest dialect but you can't really beat hearing everything in your head spoken in the Swedish Chef's voice. Though I am pretty damn easy to entertain. I think that it's funny that you can Google in Swahili. Ummnn, like anyone who speaks Swahili knows how to work a computer! Come on, people!

To DJ,

I apologize. I really didn't intentionally leave the pickleloaf there for you to be confronted with for all of eternity. I promise to post and post until it's migrated safely down the page and, eventually, into the oblivion of archives.

The unmistakable taste of pickleloaf...

Earlier this evening I was enjoying a dish that is commonly refered to as "Dixie Chili Dip", from those of us from the Cincinnati/Northern KY tri-state area, and drinking a cherry coke. Directly following this fine meal I enjoyed a cigarette. About halfway through this cigarette I noticed a foul taste in my mouth and after some pondering I realised that the taste in my mouth was none other than pickleloaf. I don't think I have ever actually even tasted pickleloaf but I have smelled the disgusting stuff and it is one of those things that I imagine tastes exactly like it smells. In conclusion, Dixie Chili Dip (philadelphia cream cheese, Dixie fake Chili & shredded cheese) + Cherry Coke + 1 Marlboro Ultra Light = pickleloaf. Sick.



This is posted mostly as a warning to all that these elements are 3 great tastes that taste weird together. Don't do it!